


What Came Before Won't Count Anymore

by writermegs17



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 01:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writermegs17/pseuds/writermegs17
Summary: Barry and Iris realize how much things have changed since the Speedforce, even though their  amount of love for each other never has.





	What Came Before Won't Count Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Got this idea from the song Only Us from Dear Evan Hansen, Enjoy!

Barry sits on the couch in the loft with Iris, his shoulders slouched and his thumbs just slightly twiddling. He’s only been back from the Speedforce for a week, and everything with Iris just off. Not that he expected everything to go back to normal right away, because that is an impossible feat, he knows that, but he doesn’t feel like he and Iris are even close to the people that they were before, and it terrifies him.

“Iris?” Barry finally says, his voice unsure and barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, babe?” Iris replies, her eyebrows expressing her curiousness

“Do you still love me enough to marry me?”

Iris’s face turns warm and serious, her eyes barely glossed with tears. “Barry, of course I do, I love you more than anything and I’m so happy to have you home.”

“Then why does it feel like we don’t know each other anymore?”

Iris takes a deep breath before speaking, not wanting to say anything that would break her currently fragile fiancé’s heart. “Because you were gone for so long, it hardened me, Barry. I’m not the same person I was six months ago, and I wish I could be, but I can’t.”

“I’m so sorry that I hurt you, I just wanted to protect you, to protect the city. But if you had told me to stay I would have, Iris. I need you to know that.” Barry quietly sobs.

Iris is crying now too. “I know, Bear, I know you would have. That’s just the good and loving man that you are.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me to stay, Iris?”  
“Because I couldn’t bear to watch the terror and guilt eat away at you if you had stayed in this city destroyed. It would darken you, and I know you never need more of that in your life. I love you too much to have watched you learn to hate yourself.”  
“But I do hate myself, I hate that I left you. I left you for six fucking months, Iris. What kind of person leaves their soulmate for that long?” Barry says, finally sobbing so hard that he can hardly breathe.

“Barry, breathe, I’m not mad at you, I was hurt, sometimes I still am, but I was never angry, okay? I understand that you did what you had to do to protect me, to protect everyone that you love, like you always do.”

“I just don’t get why you still love me so much when I left you.”

“I know, and maybe you never will, and that’s okay.  Because some days, I wake up and there’s no clear reason for why I love you more than anything in the world, I just do.”

“I hate this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hate that you are always taking care of me when you need me to take care of you.”

“I’ve never minded being strong enough for the both of us.”

“Thank you. I promise when I’m better, and all this darkness is gone, I’ll never stop taking care of you.”

“I know you won’t, you’re an unbelievably good man, the best that I know, all I need from you is to remember that.”

“I’m broken, Iris, don’t you know that?”  
Iris finally lets the tears fall, a symbol to Barry that she’s finally torn down all her walls. “Oh Honey, it’s okay, so am I.”

“I just want you to be enough for you, but I broke your heart.”

“Barry, you’re more than enough. You always have been.”

“I don’t deserve you.”  
Iris feels her heart breaking and she shakes her head. “No, my love, I don’t deserve _you_.”

“Really, you deserve better than someone who left you.”

“Barry, you make my heart skip a beat and you are so selfless, gentle, and kind. That’s all I need.”

“I learned that from you.”

“You’ve always been all of the things that I love about you. It just took me a long time to see that.”

“I love you, Iris West.”  
Iris smiles, the first 100 percent genuine smile in a while.  “I love you, Barry Allen, and I need you to promise me something.”  
Barry nods cautiously. “I will do anything for you. Always.”

“Never forget that I want nothing more in this world than to be your wife, and I’ll always want that.”  
“Okay, I won’t forget.” Barry says, finally letting himself smile.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed your smile, I like to see you happy.”

“I’m smiling because sometimes I’m still in disbelief that someone as beautiful and kind as you wants to be my wife, even after all we have been through together.”

“You have to stop selling yourself short, I want all the wonderful things, and I want them with you right there by my side.  I want to marry you in a white dress surrounded by all the people we love, I want to find the perfect home with you, and fill it with the most beautiful children who have your beautiful eyes and your even more beautiful heart. But right now, it’s just us, learning, and growing, and loving each other more and more with every single passing day, and I promise you with everything in my heart that that will always be more than enough for me. You, you with all your beautiful strengths and flaws, will always be enough for me. Until the end of time.”

Barry smiles. “We’re going to be okay, forever. I know that now. Because you’re right, we love each other more than the sun and stars, and it will always be that way.”

Iris wipes a happy tear from her eyes “Thank you for running home to me, Baby.”

“Always.” Barry replies, and then he kisses her, a kiss strong enough that he can already feel the aches that have plagued his heart for so long beginning to heal.  Now in his heart he knows for certain that someday things will be even better than they were before.


End file.
